A report released today by the state Comptroller's Office says the regional disability services office has nearly stopped the practice of hiring relatives of employees.

The report is a follow-up to a 2007 comptroller's audit that found Central New York Developmental Disabilities Services Office employees hired more than 30 of their relatives for home maintenance and repair projects, with bills that totaled more than $253,000.

The audit found that the agency "almost completely discontinued using employees or relatives of employees as vendors." The lone exception was a seamstress related to four employees who was paid more than $12,000 from 2009 to 2011. The agency should have advertised for bids for that work, the comptroller said.

The agency also recovered $2,400 that had been paid to an employee for sitting with clients of the agency when she had a relative do it instead. The DDSO has also stopped allowing relatives of employees to be sitters for clients, the report said.

The DDSO, based in North Syracuse, serves about 1,450 people with developmental disabilities in Cayuga, Cortland, Herkimer, Lewis, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga and Oswego counties. The agency runs 195 group homes and 161 family care homes.